Neo-Victorian America? An interesting perspective on current events...

[JRob]

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/052205A.shtml

"Thus, the political fights over Iraq, Social Security, and now the filibuster are not isolated, they are about whether we are going to create the kind of society that a military hegemony requires to sustain itself: filled with people who are desperate for work, a stone's throw from poverty, and feeling themselves surrounded and beset by terrors and disaster."

[murielkane]

1. The parallels don't quite ring true

Victorian England was overall a vibrant and expanding society, even if the benefits of economic growth were not equitably distributed. The contemporary U.S. is in a state of economic contraction and decline.

The Neocons and other would-be empire-builders may consciously be trying to emulate the British Empire at its peak, but to me the U.S. looks far more like France on the brink of the Revolution -- with its middle class under assault, its poor pushed to the edge of the abyss, and its financial stability shaken by its ill-advised intervention in the War of American Independence.

[JRob]

2. I tend to agree more with your comparison...

I've actually referred to the French Rev myself... where's our Danton?

I still thought that it was worth sharing due to that you don't see a lot on historic parallels etc.

Thanks for the post.